Starlight (ENG)
by MissDiRed
Summary: It was supposed to be normal Friday in the middle of June, goddamnit! Natalie is your typical teenage girl; much smarter, much sassier and much less friendly than usual, but still pretty normal. But then, shit goes down; and she doesn't honestly mind. Until everyone suddenly wants to befriend her, that is. (English translation of Polish fanfiction under the same name. No beta.)
1. Chapter 1

Starlight; my main story, main concern, main source of artistic frustration. Starlight, for four years written only in my native language, Polish, now comes in translated into English for everyone else to see and read.

After two failed attempt to get someone to translate it for me, I just got mad and decided to translate chapters all on my own, true to the saying 'you want something done, do it yourself'. So, here I present you, first chapter of Starlight.

Enjoy!

 **|CHAPTER ONE|**

 **|An event that was completely unexpected|**

* * *

June, a month so awaited by everyone, especially by students of all possible types. So beloved; the time of end to those all cursed school and its responsibilities, foretelling two months of salvation – incoming in big steps summer holiday. And also, for some, a month hated like no other; full of stress and hectic tries to finish all unfinished causes. Time, where all the tasks shoved away 'for later' now had cumulated and had to be done. All of them, at once. On one hand, summer holiday just behind the doorstep, but on the other, it was not so bright and colorful anymore. Especially to all kinds of students attending all kinds of school, from elementary school starting, to college and beyond.

Let's start with the fact, that all students can most likely in most of the cases can be divided into three groups. First group consists of people that are fully content with their final marks. They can relax, stop thinking about school and basically already have holiday, perhaps taking very last tests. The second group consists of people who are not endangered by their marks in any way, but are not content of them at all, yearning to have a better mark, because they're not really content with what they have, so they try to somehow make it. Here is where stress and oiliness starts; getting to teachers' asses and basically begging for better marks which, as predicted, usually fails. The worst case is, though, the third group, which means people who are practically forced to correct their marks (unless they don't want to proceed to next class).

But in the small Jasper – city placed in deserted state of Nevada, there was a school that was very specific about that certain case; Memorial High School. Absolute most of students had suspected since forever that both director and rest of school faculty of the school are not quite examples of sane people; not only by the fact that the schooling system was absolutely ineffectual, there was no case of someone not passing to next class in years. That was a bad thing, though; because school during June was ruled by the so-called 'reports' – written works about certain topic for certain subjects, who were enough to be scored for an E to pass to next class. Only, the sole fact of having it allowed student to score an E.

But, did those who were threatened by failing class did those reports themselves? Of course not.

And what did teachers say about it? In some cases they were the ones who had searched for and asked those better students to make reports for their less smart pupils. And this is where, most often, the first group of students suffered.

Natalie O'Correl, first year student in Memorial High School was just exactly, to her own bad luck, one of school's aces; placing in top five schools students (which, to be honest, weren't may and all, and even less was at least a bit interested in actual studying). And this is exactly why now, after classes were finally dismissed, clothed way too thick and way too black for summer on the desert, she was walking through the school hall and radiating dark, hateful aura; sensation so thick and overwhelming it was nearly visible. And Natalie in bad mood was something that everyone in this school learned to fear throughout this short year. Her steps were fast, hectic, and sound of metal sole of her combat boots that reached nearly her knees was thundering; effectively scaring away anyone in radius of hearing or seeing her sulking form.

Few people ran next to hell, quickly and nervously, as if startled birds fleeing from a hungry predator; it was the very last wish of anyone to become subject of rage of this lanky, skinny, seemingly harmless girl in glasses, with eternally tousled bangs.

This morning she came to school in pretty good mood, to be honest (it was, after all Friday; and if that wasn't enough, it was also June!). And of course, that good mood was brutally murdered nearly instantly after she made it past the doorstep, where the PE teacher caught her and announced, that Natalie just **must** help her favorite students to get out of F-trouble. Because of course, when she was giving her that B, hardly fought in pain and tears, she did not care for girl's other marks the slightest; but now, when her pupils were in trouble, she magically remembered, that Natalie is one of the best, if not the best, students in school! But this is life, and what you can do? People care about you only, when they want something from you. Thus is why, to great irritation on girl's part, she was nearly instantly fooled into making reports for three people she couldn't care less about. And she wasn't even really asked if she wants, to be honest. It was just announced to her, and if she was to be perfectly honest, she would preferably just let it all go to hell and go home as she stood, deciding that she doesn't give slightest shit about such school. But this was Natalie, so, after shaking off the initial shock, standing alone by the entrance with a piece of paper on which three names were scribbled that she did not care about anyway, and green bag patterned with black cats, she just automatically went further into the building; not, as she should, walk far-far away into the distance back home and forget about the deal.

It was June after all.

And that was why, unintentionally, she didn't went knee-deep into that shit, but belt-deep instead. This time nearly from her own will, if previous wasn't enough.

Just by sole walking by faculty room, her favorite physics teacher – Ms. Collinson – included, Natalie felt unpleasant knot on her stomach, when woman smiled towards her in way too sweet manner, halting her chat with chemistry professor. That was just about enough for Natalie to deeply regret the fact that, like sheep for the slaughter, she just went deeper into the slaughterhouse instead of running like hell when she still had a chance.

All black thoughts Natalie has came to life two breaks later, when she was calmly sitting on the windowsill, munching homemade cake her grandmother gave her as a second breakfast today and surfing through the internet via her phone, comfortably placed within a case with Skyrim logo on the back. That was when Miss Collinson walked up to her, slightly uncertain, nearly as if a predator rounding its prey; only not. The predator was sitting calmly, bored, and the prey was checking the ground, as if it's really safe to come closer. Natalie just, absolutely resigned, informed the teacher about 'round-up of F-students' in room number 36 after classes.

Natalie was certain that no one she was supposed to… Let's call it 'work' with wasn't happy about the fact at all; it was, after all, Natalie O'Correl – what of the fact that she's one of the best students, if she's also one of most frightening people in school? Sometimes even more than worst of the teachers; nearly a legend, even if she attends the high school only for one year. But everybody knew the story that happened at the very beginning very well; in September, when Natalie forged herself opinion of person so frightening, that even some bullies from upper classes shivered at sole mention of her name. And it happened actually because of one of fourth year student, James Allen, who decided it will be nice to bully that lanky, unnoticed, forever-alone first year. He should've known better; he should've backed, when he noticed glimpse of something very, very bad in Natalie's eyes. He really should have. But he didn't, and he continued to bully her (even if Natalie didn't seem to notice it at all) and he realized that something is very wrong when she had sent him very unpleasant, awfully nice smile.

It was about a week before a certain event had occurred in school, something that students now called 'Little Apocalypse' – not really even known why; high-schoolers are weird. Because very next day after Natalie smiling to him, James started getting very, very unpleasant calls, threats, he had grown paranoid. And then, suddenly, with no warning, all his wrongdoings, everything he possibly had to hide has been mercilessly dragged out. And not only in school; many people in town got very interesting info on him, it started appearing on public sites. His life was ruined. He instantly became impossibly nice; and for next half of a year, each time he saw Natalie he instantly ran away, absolutely frightened.

Of course, no one tracked the anonymous informatory who did it all; not officially, at least, because everybody knew that it was Natalie herself who had done it; girls herself wasn't exactly hiding the fact, but neither was she openly admitting it. She just did what had to be done.

And now, after whole school year had passed, Natalie walked the hallway, looking for that cursed room with door adorned with number of thirty-six; the historical class. She always liked this class, for no particular reason, really. It was calming, kind of, and maybe Natalie had hoped that being in her favorite class will stop her from committing a cold-blooded murder. Especially since one of names listed by her PE teacher she really, really didn't like.

Gaze of olive-colored, nearly catlike eyes kept sliding from door to door, looking for two-pieced number that was thirty-six; and even if Natalie hoped from the very bottom of her very black and very rotten heart that they all will just plain ignore her she knew deep down that it's not going to happen. Simply because life hated her (and vice fucking versa).

She nearly bolted into the class, opening the door with force so great that it the wall hard, and wood (yes, actually wood, not that weird paper-leftover mixture) moaned in protest. This was what she really liked in this class; the fact that it was the only room (available for students, that is) which was actually neatly furnished, unlike all the other classes 'just to be' – here, there were no desks, with actually tables instead, and real, comfortable chairs. One of the walls was practically transformed into one big bookshelf, whose shelves were bending under weight of many books and everything else about history. Second wall was adorned with paintings and maps of all shapes and sizes, and on the wall behind the desk, of course, was hanged a board. Last wall was basically one big window but oddly enough, Natalie did not mind at all. Perhaps she liked the class so much because the windows faced straightforward to the northern side; which meant that sun never really shone through them.

But as of the now, nearly all the blinds were down, and room drowned in pleasant dimness, which, though, had no chance to hide one sad fact; all four people signed for reports were sitting down nicely, each in their own desk; of which two looked at Natalie as if she was the Satan himself and other two couldn't possibly care less. All of them, if the sole fact that they were there wasn't enough, were also Natalie's classmates.

Amadi Martin, black-skinned boy of frightened eyes of a doe was looking at Natalie as if she could turn into a hydra at any moment and devour him, which was extraordinarly amusing to the girl, given the fact that Amadi was damn close to being seven feet tall captain of basketball team. He could also run ridiculously fast, and his passes were so strong that he could knock down person of his own size, had the ball hit them.

Mike Lowel then, blonde with slightly dreamy eyes in color of clear sky, was the goalkeeper and basically a beefcake. Just simply beefcake; only slightly shorter than Amadi and nearly twice as wide and his biceps were as thick, as Natalie's thighs. And, along with Amadi, was one of two people that were really, genuinely scared of her.

Yusuf El-Amin was the one that Miss Collinson asked Natalie to help with; he was seemingly asleep, practically lying on surface of the table next to the window and did not care about anything. He was an interesting case, honestly; usually alone, just like her, weird Arabic guy in hippie clothes with dreadlocks nearly to the waist and forever-dreamy gaze. Natalie did not let it fool her, however – that guy did, after all, get better scores than her from science subjects than her. Then why was he here? Because in school, aside science subjects there were also humanistic subjects; and there was where he had miserably failed.

Sadly, there are no roses without thorns, are there? Because the fourth person was the person Natalie was eager to meet preferably never; the one of whose life Natalie started to be genuinely afraid, because she felt like ripping her apart from just being in the same room. Fourth person and the only girl in the 'team' was, after all, none other than Lisa Gaarland; golden-haired beauty, who was subject of adoration of half of male students from the school and few other from beyond. Placed next to Lisa, Natalie, usually just plain and normal Natalie maybe with some feral and some noble features now suddenly wasn't really pretty at all; to not to say ugly. Lisa was very beautiful; but only outside. She was a bitch – she was such a bitch that sometimes Natalie felt sting of jealousy seeing just how awful person this petite, delicate blonde can be. This was, though, also the biggest issue here; Lisa lived in (false) conviction that everybody is her lowly servant and must do all she wants them to do.

"Well, finally! How long were we supposed to wait?" beauty hissed scornfully. Natalie nearly choked on curse that was really wanting to jump out of her throat, pulled stand of her very dark brown hair back and sighed heavily, repeating mantra of 'don't get pissed off' in her head.

"Dependant on what you're waiting for" Natalie started in seemingly polite tone. "If you meant me, you didn't have to wait at all. It's not like I want to help band of cretins, so, yeah, you know what I mean" she smiled forcefully, her smile slightly crooked. Lisa, which was to be predicted, at first did not realize at all that brunette just, as simply as it can be, mocked her. During the time blonde kept processing the information, Natalie managed to walk over to Yusuf, lying on table and seemingly very interested with the blind on the window; he was slipping away, because he was battling with himself very hard to keep his eyes open and head up. Natalie choose to talk to him first, because he wasn't only the least interested one, but also least problematic.

She managed to raise her hand with full intent of nudging the boy, but the whole action had no time to actually take blace, because there, in that moment, a miracle occurred; Lisa understood she was mocked. Lisa actually understood.

Chair (perhaps chair, but Natalie cut not be sure, being turned back to the source of sound and all) fell down with a crash, instantly followed by loud steps of feet clad in ridiculus high heels hitting the floor. After very short time Natalie felt something digging into her arm and it wasn't hard to guess that those were Lisa's nails (claws!). Natalie hissed, turning around to look down at the blonde. Mad blonde, in whose big, maybe childlike, brown eyes anger burned high. Lisa was already parting her lips to speak, but the same second Natalie put her hand onto blonde's neck, to what the latter squeaked in surprise, jumped back and fell onto Amadi, who looked as if he was going to faint.

Natalie's hands were, as always, ice-cold.

"C-cold" blonde whined softly, looking at brunette with wide eyes, still holding her neck, where Natalie's hand was placed seconds ago.

"You don't say?" cat-eyed girl snorted, adjusting her glasses and looking at blonde with pity. Subconsciously, she started rubbing her hands in futile attempt to warm them up.

"As if of a spook!" Lisa squeaked, standing up using back of nearly stiff from fear Amadi.

"As if of a spook" Natalie agreed, and allowed her lips to be bent with very unpleasant smirk, upon seeing which Amadi crawled away, nearly tripping Lisa over.

"But… Why?"

„Because I have slightly distorted bloodstream; although I don't expect you to understand what I'm saying" Natalie sighed, shrugging. Lisa understood very little after all, and was the only one in class Natalie was not surprised was In F-trouble; she was your stereotypical blonde who was getting hurt by thinking.

Sometimes literally, it would appear.

"Fine" Natalie sighed, walking past stoned Lisa, who was still trying to process information she was given. "On Monday we have only six hour, so I want to see here all of you four interested in really getting group mark corrected on break after classes" and she was answered by muffled groans coming from both goalkeeper and basketball player. "I know, training, yes. You don't have to come, though, waste your time and money. But for those that want; one F corrected is twenty dollars for me. That's all, I'm not going to waste my Friday on you."

Natalie adjusted her cat-adorned bag and headed out of the school, keeping fast pace and leaving the four in historical class. There was freedom beyond school's doorstep, two days of the blessed weekend; and there was nothing more she had needed more than calmness and rest before the screen of her PC, eating whatever her grandmother had cooked, since morning till'… Well, morning. Whatever the others wanted to do, at least until Monday, she couldn't care less for.

Natalie O'Corres stepped outside of Memorial High School in Jasper nearly squealing in happiness, holding her tongue only because there still were people around. People from her class she could barely stand; Jack Darby, gray mass with absolutely no personality and Miko Nakadai, hyperactive, rather stupid Japanese girl. Natalie liked (loved) Japan and all connected to it (games and anime especially), but that cretin from an exchange program was beyond her tolerance levels; to annoying with her 'hey, I'm from beyond the sea and all' attitude.

But instead of going home, she headed, as every Friday (and not only Friday) towards the canyon, beyond the city. She kept spending time there quite often and even had her own place to hide from the world; hard to get to and much harder to spot; skipping of course the fact that she had a chain placed there, for the sake of comfort. She kept going there very often, even if it was outside and Natalie hated outside. That stone shelf, her stone shelf was placed high, facing northwest, forever in shadow and up, where wind blew in pleasant manner. And there was always Wi-Fi there; and not just any. The best in whole goddamn area. And the whole place was one big solitude, far from any road and few fancied walks through the desert.

But nothing could've possibly prepared Natalie for what she was to face on her way. Something that paralyzed her as she stood, opening her eyes and parting her lips as if fish pulled out of water, desperately trying not to choke, nearly unable to move at all. Only after blue missile, shining like a lightning, flew right next to her head and nearly dissolved a boulder behind her she decided that it might be wise to hide somewhere.

Giant robots were fighting in the canyon.


	2. Chapter 2

I don't bite. Really.

 **|CHAPTER TWO|**

 **|Sign of Something New|**

* * *

It seemed so impossible, as if some daydream or apparition.

But it was real. Very real and, as Natalie was soon shown very closely, quite dangerous for all the bystanders; when one of blue, plasma-like missiles darted right next to her ear, hitting a big rock not far behind. Shards hitting her back weren't of pleasant sensations. At all, and those were only small ones, since bigger rocks didn't, thankfully, make it even halfway. And that was what made her realize that it would perhaps be better to hide somewhere. Especially if she wanted to avoid possible injuries; and to hide somewhere fast. Still slightly stiff after most recent shock, she crept, stumbling slightly, behind one of bigger rocks; but still, every once in a while, she was peeking out to look at this very unlikely happening. Who cares she could get hit with absolutely anything? It was, at least for her, way too interesting experience to run away fearing for her own life. She could technically record it, yes, but what for? It's not like she was going to show anyone a recording of fight of four huge machines; and even if, it would connect to highly unpleasant and even more unwanted consequences. What would have happened, had this hypothetical movie gotten into hands on some kind of 'government' organization? Everybody know just fine that organizations like those are very, very uncomfortable to be around with. And they like to ask many uncomfortable questions. But luckily in this moment, in this canyon there's absolutely no 'government' organizations; and good. But four eagerly fighting, huge robots were.

First pair just kept trashing each other faces in most traditional way possible, trivially speaking. One of them was colored in rotten-green, rather short and very wide, perhaps even fat, and the other one, blue with red face, taller, slimmer and somewhat more muscular, if those were right terms for robots. Second pair, however, danced some weird boogie-woogie; because as much as yellow-and-black robot, that just kept bringing a bee into thoughts, was trying his best to land a hit, that much had the red robot just jump away shrieking and kept spewing swear words no worse than a sailor.

After a while of looking at the robots, what was not really made easier by the fact that they were constantly moving, Natalie concluded that them, most likely, belonged to two different fractions and thus was the reason of them fighting. How had she came up with it? Well, it was easy; they had emblems on them, that somehow looked like faces; one was more square-ish, wider and the other, seemingly done on a base of a triangle, getting visibly narrower the closer to the bottom and kinda looked like head of a fox. And it looked like square-faces were in conflict with fox-faces, and vice versa, because if it was something, then it was not a friendly sparring. Not with yellow bee-like robot (square-face) trying his best to shoot down the red one (fox-face). Green robot had a square emblem, too, and blue one – triangle emblem. But all in all, that was all Natalie could see from that distance and with them so mobile.

Luckily, she had stayed unspotted by anyone, and it didn't seem as if she would be anytime soon; perhaps even if she started yelling and running around them (which she did not intend to do). She'd rather not draw any attention to herself at all, unless it was of absolute necessity. She suspected that if she did, she might just get hit with some pretty, cracked boulder the size of at least small car. She even managed to imagine herself the macabre scenario of her date with flying rock; she would be turned into a bloody puree, Happy End. But, even if sometimes it seemed just otherwise, she was not hurrying into the grave at all. After grandfather, yes, but way before grandmother and parents? Never. Trip to the other side was a bit much interfering with her future plans, so she just decided to not to venture there.

But her curiosity was also interfering with those plans, being what could easily send her on that trip, and, on many occasions, in much more spectacular way than date with clod of rock, dirt and earth. Natalie, one could say, was always balancing on narrow rope with forest of blades extending beneath her, had one want to play a poet. One wrong move – not step, move – and, quite often, life in grave danger. But well, old habits die hard; Natalie was always the curious one, testing the environment before anyone could even tell her to not do it. First to, literally, put her hand into the flames; first to take a sip of boiling-hot tea; first to run fast on uneven, rocky ground or approaching – often wild aggressive – animals. And asking shit ton of questions which, sometimes, caught even smartest of adults like deer in headlights, unable to answer. She always yearned for knowledge; and, quite often, practice. She did not trust anything unless she got a solid proof it was like that and not other way; proof like that small, fifteen-years-old scar on her left hand. Ever since then she knows well that touching fire is doomed to end bad. She, sure, did do some carefulness, but only so much that her curiosity wouldn't border with madness.

Sometimes.

Could she just simply start yelling and run in between the robots? She could. But that would be sign of complete and utter lack of any breaks, imagination and reason. And those were the things that she did have. A bit of breaks, nearly limitless, sometimes macabre imagination and quite a lot of reason, which was sometimes (nearly always) just turned off, when Natalie encountered something completely new. But there were, of course, exceptions. Four huge, fighting exceptions made entirely out of metal, to be precise.

But nothing lasts forever, especially this type of happenings. This one ended quite interestingly. Two bigger robots, to Natalie's complete surprise and amazement just turned into cars and chased each other down the canyon, soon disappearing from line of sight in clouds of dust risen after them. Yellow robot finally managed to shoot the red one, in the right calf, and then he ran in other direction, running into whirling, green-blue aurora that had suddenly appeared out of thin air, and disappearing with it seconds later. Red robot's screech was deafening, as he fell down loudly, holding his wounded leg so tightly, he bent metal a bit, muttering something in digital-ish language Natalie had no way of knowing. Outer side of the wound was jagged in pretty ugly way, and smoked at the ends, but the wound didn't really look all that serious; it just leaked a bit of blue, glowing liquid. Red robot cursed again, only this time in very human way, using a term that described his current situation nearly perfectly, about which Natalie wasn't surprised at all. If she was in his place, it wouldn't end with just that one sentence.

After a while, just few minutes, five at most, red robot stood up shakily, his face cringing in very sour way, and clawed hand clasped around the wound; and then he stumbled slowly towards the wall of the canyon. Good move, Natalie thought, avoid possibility of being discovered by people that won't keep the secret to themselves. When he walked between the bigger rocks, brunette stood up with a heavy sigh and slowly, as stealthy as she could, followed the robot; crouching and creeping behind all the rocks and in all the cracks, feeling as if an assassin from a computer game. The robot had, it seemed, very good hearing sense. Her leg slipped, rocks made a little rattle – he was already spun around, careful, watching, nearly sniffing, trying to spot anything that wasn't rocks, sand or dirt. Few times she was nearly spotted, because two slips was all it took for him to keep turning without an alarm from then on, every once in a short while. Feeling of being stalked always gave boost to carefulness, so from then on Natalie had to completely avoid getting into the line of sight. The fact that she was quite small made it easier, but the fact that she was dressed in black and dark blue, contrasting with golden-brown scenario and her clumsiness that activated right now did not.

At last red robot had found a hole in the canyon wall, most likely a cave opening, and crawled, literally crawled into it, vanishing from Natalie's view. Not for long, of course. After waiting a while, few minutes, no longer, as if a commando in Afganistan, jumping from rock to rock like some lunatic maniac until she made it to the opening. The further in, the less sunlight was able to get into the cavern and made it harder to navigate; and the cavern, as it turned out, was not small. To add to that, there were a lot of rocks, boulders and other rock formations in perhaps every possible shape and size. Stalagmites made weird, crooked and slightly creepy columns; and none of those made walking around any easier.

Natalie basically glued herself to the wall and slowly slid with it, blinking fiercely to speed up the process of getting used to darkness as fast, as possible. The task of finding the robot was made much easier by occasional splatters of blue, glowing goo that got out of his wound; it had very specific, chemical smell which Natalie couldn't really name, and sniffing it gave her the same feeling as sniffing the chemicals used to clean the pipes. She really should have stop it right now, because it could have been (and most likely was) a poisonous substance, at least for humans. Small splatters every once in a few steps showed the way just fine; pained moans and muffled curses weren't making it harder either. Natalie, however, wasn't careful enough, looking for him, what was considered a mistake. Not enough caution, two steps too far. He spotted her, because why not, and exactly in a moment when she noticed that she got into his line of sight and was already backing away to hide behind the boulder. But would the world be world had it let her hide? Of course not.

"Come out!" the robot yelled, slightly scared to what Natalie tripped and with loud 'shit', prolonging last letter, fell down. Meeting of her ass and hard, cold ground was sudden and surely could not be accounted as pleasant. Growling silently, she stood up and crept from behind the boulder, glaring at the robot. He sat by the wall, supporting himself with it, and his face was bent with pain, but other than that he was just fine. On the sight of the girl, however, his expression instantly changed into, respectively, utter shock to shock and, in the end – annoyed. Because, well, he got scared by a fleshling; nothing that could pose any threat to him.

"Who are you?" he asked, cringing even more and looking at the girl impatiently. His eyes were amazing; red, glowing rings on black sclera. Others might get enchanted by them; other others might get frightened. Others, meaning not-Natalie.

"Etiquette commits men to introduce themselves first. Unless you don't consider yourself as one…?" she said with that typical arrogance of hers, supporting her side on a nearby boulder behind which she tried to hide before. _Yes, great fucking idea, Nat_ , she scolded herself in her thoughts. _Keep on being nonchalant towards big angry robots_.

„KnockOut" the robot growled, only to turn his head away with a hiss, hiding embarrassment.

"Natalie" girl huffed back at him. She decided that, aside currently impossible squishing her, she's rather safe from any harm; he was grounded, with his hands deep into the wound as if he knew exactly what he's doing. She hadn't witnessed any indication that he could shoot during the fight earlier, but she still kept the good distance of few meters. Just in a case. And with that, they just both sat there for well above five minutes, glaring at each other. Natalie almost wasn't blinking, which seemed to annoy the robot a lot; she was, most likely, acting towards him like no human he ever encountered before, looking at him and trying to catch every detail of him. He even stopped messing with his wound, but Natalie had noticed that the blue goo stopped leaking out of it; which meant he must've stopped it.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed, sliding further away from her.

"Sitting" Natalie huffed, shrugging.

"Not what I meant. How did you Get here?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

"I was here earlier, just neither you nor your friends didn't bother noticing me, too busy trashing the fuck out of the other" she shrugged, as if watching four huge robots fight was something absolutely normal. KnockOut just growled in response, and stopped talking to her; it did not, however, mean that he intended to keep quiet, because instead he started trying to turn something on, fiddling with his helmet around a place where humans had ears. It wasn't hard to conclude that he tried to contact his base; sadly, unsuccessfully. After few more tries he just gave up, resigned, and looked at Natalie. And nearly got scared seeing, that she didn't move an inch, still sitting in the same position as before, glaring at him.

"What are you looking at?" he growled, shaking off the shock. Natalie gave no answer, pulling her laptop out of her bag with cat paws instead and something that looked like shortwave transmitter, and then started fiddling with the stuff.

"What are you doing?" KnockOut asked, this time in normal, a bit curious voice. Natalie hadn't even spared him a glance, so he decided to just stay quiet ; he just watched what that weird human girl kept doing, clicking something on the laptop or messing with the transmitter, getting weird sounds from the device from time to time. After a time that seemed like eternity to KnockOut, girl smiled triumphant, hoped off the boulder she was sitting on and walked over to him. Robot, absolutely not expecting so sudden reaction actually squeaked in terror and moved away a bit, as if the girl could possibly be any danger to him. Natalie just gave him a pitiful smile and shook her head; and held out the transmitter towards him, pressing one of the buttons, and the device let out a creaking noise.

"Wherever were you calling, here you have it" she answered, offering not really pleasant, wolf-like smile. "Hadn't managed to catch the line of the same frequency you wanted, but I found the other one, nearly identical, available."

"I don't think it could…"

"KnockOut, is that you? Where are you?" sounded in the speakers. "And what is that other voice?" and then KnockOut just opened his mouth and eyes widely, looking at Natalie as if she was the Big Bad Robot and he was just a simple human who has stumbled upon it. Save even the fact that there were complete disbelief in his red, glowing eyes.

"And how are you even calling from a restricted link?" the voice inquired, and Natalie's smile grew even wider and less pleasant, and she sighed something that sounded like 'oops', said without even as much as a trace of guilt.

"Well, Lord Megatron, it's quite a funny story…" he started. He slowly and carefully explained his situation (and Natalie had to switch the hand she held transmitter in few times), skipping few facts; like receiving help from a human girl. And as much as that whole Lord Megatron kept inquiring about the 'second voice', KnockOut skillfully avoided answering ('I'll explain absolutely everything; after painkillers will allow me to think straight!'), and Natalie had mixed feelings on that. She was happy about him being discreet, but on the other hand, she really wanted to hear reaction of the somebody on the other side.

"So, yeah" KnockOut sighed finally. "I need a bridge, straight to medical bay."

"Soundwave, you heard that" Lord Megatron spoke again, and, just like that and without any warning, cut the link off.

"Ugh, finally" KnockOut moaned, with a visible relief painted over his face, and then he looked at Natalie and shook his head. "Thanks. You know, you're kinda okay, for a human."

"And you for a giant robot" she just shrugged.

And just in that moment blue and green and purple flashed, twirled and formed a crclone-like whirl, and nearly instantly there was that blue robot from earlier getting out of it. Seeing his friend in such state, he just shook his head with pity and picked him up without any comment, and KnockOut didn't even protest. He paid no attention to Natalie (and she liked to convince herself it was due to her camouflage), and KnockOut looked at her one last time before they disappeared, and the aurora with them, with no trace.

Natalie just shook her head, deciding that it's enough adventures as for just one Friday, and she should head home. She'll rest, and it'll all be good; and calm.

If she only knew of what was going to happen to her from then on, she'd just curse her whole existence where she stood.

And, most likely, repeated all her actions anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

**|CHAPTER THREE|**

 **|Raspberry|**

* * *

Natalie walked slowly, dragging her legs on the ground; she wasn't in a hurry or anything anyway. She wasn't sad, either; just more than the road she walked nearly automatically, she was interested in analyzing happenings of last few hours in canyon, taking them apart to the bits, trying to remember every, even smallest and least insignificant detail. She was just thinking about what had happened, to put it simply. She wasn't much of a fan of physical form of memorizing events – photography or 'putting one's frustrations onto the paper', that is writing down a diary. She always thought that if parents want to photography their kinds, let them do so, and diaries are for stupid, pre-highschool tween girls that are unable to deal with their 'big problems', which aren't either big not anybody cares about them. No, Natalie favored memorizing. And memorize she did, whatever she deemed interesting or important enough; if only an open bone fracture, or being bitten by a huge rat can be deemed as such, that is. Yes, Natalie was the person to deem those more macabre happenings interesting; things that normal people wanted to forget no matter what. To add to that, she even remembered bits of her stay in her mother's womb (how, from where or why; that remained a secret even, or especially, for herself). So, remembering one piece and recalling it few times, arranging and re-arranging them all to make logical whole, she learned them by heart. Something like that what happened earlier today was surely not a thing she wished to forget; and she wouldn't. Not when so determined to remember.

The whole process of intense thinking made her way home longer; from around seven to about twenty minutes, but still when she nearly hit her forehead on one of sandstone pillars she was genuinely surprised. She stepped back from treacherous, two meter tall, thick column and walked up to metal gate painted white, through which she stepped rather reluctantly, as always, sparing one, long critic glare for the garden. She found the garden rather ugly, and not fitting her tastes at all; it was way to unnatural for a deserted Jasper scenery, and Natalie would have loved to have one or two runs though it with a lawn mower.

Lush, weekly trimmed grass, straight rebates of colorful flowers, rose bushes and decorative trees were standing out starkly with very unfitting square of green and color on scenery of warm, golden-orange, deserted environment of state of Nevada. Natalie was always immensely annoyed by this pathetic excuse of a garden, stubbornly kept by her mother, who visited home only once or twice a year anyway. But that wasn't the worst yet, no; the absolute worst, tip of the iceberg was, according to Natalie, three-storey villa made from the palest type of sandstone available, with horrendous number of windows built into it. Or, in shorter words, the place she lived in; absolutely tasteless, when it came to her opinion.

And they kept asking her why she decided to move down into the basement, leaving her upstairs room to drown in the dust. Laughable. There were two things that Natalie never could or would stand, immensely annoyed by them; sunlight and heat, of which the house was full (skip hating mosquitoes and children, those weren't around, thankfully). On the contrary, there was always pleasant coolness in the basement, relaxing after a hot day, and soothing darkness for sore eyes. Who cared that her eyes were progressively getting worse by spending a lot of time in dim light? Natalie couldn't care less, not when she was pro 'convenience above all' rule. And she didn't really care about future health problems.

However, even that wasn't the eyesore in seventeen-year-old girl's live, but the fact that, despise her parents 'loving' her (or, at least, that was what they said), they seemed to be capable of showing their love only with tons and tons of green papers, buying their daughter whatever she only wanted. Not that Natalie was sad that they never were there for Christmas, and they seemed to forget even her birthday. Not anymore, at least.

Long time ago, when she was still a naïve little girl, it had been annoying, but she became emotionally numb to it as the time passed. Anyway, why should she even care for someone she doesn't know, and who doesn't know her at all? Parents – loving or not – should stay with their child, instead of travelling the world one controlling how their business works; but still, everyone knew that they weren't doing business, enjoying eternal holidays, travelling for pleasure alone, leaving their daughter to do whatever.

Natalie walked slowly between annoyingly green rebates, striding through annoyingly straight walkway, up to annoyingly straight, three wide steps. Had her mother wanted green she should've gone for natural way of having it, allowing plants to grow wherever they wanted. But no! No strand of grass, even the smallest, had absolutely no right to stand out in any way possible, and id it did – it was instantly cut down. Everything was straight and symmetric, and even if it would have been the most beautiful of flowers – in had absolutely no right to stand out in any way possibly. Roses, mainly tea-colored, were very weak and quite pathetic, even if they technically were one of the stronger variants. It was caused by the fact, that, every three months, they were having all their thorns and 'unfitting' leaves cut out. Natalie genuinely despised this place; even if it was 'pretty' and 'well cared for', it was too 'well' cared for; full of sadness, giving out very pessimistic vibe of nature tormented in the name of some crooked aesthetics. Maybe others found it pretty, but Natalie despised it. Anyway, she never was person to keep everything in check. She always found herself much more comfortable within untamed mess. There was no thing that could hide itself from her, if she only knew what she was looking for. If something was put in order, she was just getting repeatedly annoyed, unable to find anything; this, she always had bigger or smaller mess in her room, and she could get really angry at anyone who tried to disrupt the sanctuary of it. And those cases did happen; very rarely, because only when her mother was home, but they happened.

Resigned on her own thoughts, Natalie pushed big, double, overly-glazed door. Actually, those were more like windows functioning like doors. The only good thing was that the glass was darkened and matt, and what was in the house was becoming visible only from a distance of two meters from it. Natalie sighed heavily, stepping into something between the hall, salon and 'family room'. So very family that barely anyone ever spend their time in it. It wasn't even cozy anyway. Hard couches clad in cold white leather, short coffee table, huge, nearly-never-used TV and pale carpets that were as far from fluffy as they could be. This place, instead of being a cozy sanctuary for whole family was cold, unwelcoming home for dust. And Natalie didn't even bother to take her shoes off, bringing into the room even more sand and dust, served straight from the desert. She never bothered.

Walking fast, she directed herself towards the kitchen, passing through the dining room. Big, cold room with walls painted blue and huge oaken table for at least twenty people. Since being bought, which was about seven years ago, actually used only twice or so. Natalie didn't bother to spare a second glance to the room, speeding towards dark brown, oaken door to the kitchen.

The second she opened the door she was greeted by particularly pleasant scent of cooked meat and sound of boiling oil. Natalie smiled, quite cheerfully, completely throwing pessimistic thoughts away and briskly walked into the room, closing the door behind her. Kitchen was, surprisingly, quite cozy on a contrary to other rooms, drowning in pleasant mixture of beiges, chocolates and coffees. Paneling and floor were tinted like dark coffee, and ceiling was full of caramel and beige splatters; furniture, on the other hand, stood out from dark wood, colored like milk chocolate. In all that the only things standing out with cold, pale silver were only metal pieces of the stove, handles, dishwasher and few other details. And in this mixture of brown, a figure of a woman clad in airy, willow green stood out starkly. Said woman was completely consumed with humming some cheerful tune, while making sure that meat on the pan doesn't burn.

"I'm back" Natallie muttered, throwing her bag into the corner, not caring at all about all the gadges inside it, and sat herself on one of four chairs standing around a small round table.

"Hard to miss the fact" woman said after a short while, turning the stove off and putting the food on two separate plates. "How was it at school?"

"Absolutely shitty. It's **that** time of the year after all."

"Oh. They wanted you to help someone out with marks again" woman said rather than asked.

"Yep. Guys will do; they're totally dumb, but actually want to cooperate. But the worst is that.. That… That fucking pink pokemon."

"Lisa Gaarland? Ouche. My dear granddaughter Got stuck In quite deep shit."

"Got pushed into said shit, gramps."

Natalie was not alone – there was always that one person she could count on no matter what; her grandmother, Marabeth O'Correl. It was thanks to the woman that first years of Natalie's parents absence weren't so bad or longing. She was always tied closer to Marabeth than them anyway. That sixty-two years old woman was appearance-wise very similar to her granddaughter – tall, slightly taller than Natalie, with pale, slightly grayish complexion, slim, boyish figure, dark brown hair lined with strands of silver. But that was not it; neither were similar, noble face features what so very visibly connected both women. It was the eyes; olive, catlike, wild and intelligent. Heritage of O'Correls, of every woman with O'Correl blood. No matter how many generations through – every single female descendant gazed upon the world through olive eyes of a cat.

"Yes; cretin is immensely lucky, must say. Blood's thicker than water, and her family makes teachers help her out. And you can't beat her with intelligence, and cracking her skull open via wall doesn't really suffice. And childish 'mean' jokes aren't your type, and I sincerely doubt they'd work out either" Marabeth sighed heavily, placing plates onto the table. Chicken breast in crisp made of corn flakes and pancake dough, to which garlic sauce and salad. Natalie licked her dry, cracked lips at the sole sight of it.

"Yeah. Hitting her head on the wall to check if she maybe does have some pebble of a brain is really tempting, but it's not nearly worth of getting jailed" Natalie shrugged resigned, what Marabeth apparently found very amusing. They both had that creepy, dark sense of humor, slightly spiced with some macabre. But when Marabeth finally regained control over herself, she looked at Natalie again, waiting for something.

"There was something else that happened it, wasn't there? I know that look of yours, although it'll be years since I saw it last time. You got genuinely interested in something" and there it was. On whole world lived only one person capable of reading Natalie's mood and feelings, and deducting many things out of those, and it was her grandmother. Only, it was not just any degree; Marabeth just read Natalie out loud like a picture book without any problem. No lying had sense either, or avoiding answer. Marabeth would sense after first world if Natalie's lying or not, and then make the girl tell the truth anyway. She just knew her granddaughter so well; sometimes Natalie thought that her grandmother knows her better than she herself does. And she wasn't even that much wrong.

"Dunno if you'll believe me, but since there's no point in evading answer anyway… Just don't think I'm a looney. Or interrupt. Or laugh" Natalie raised her gaze from above the plate and dug her teeth into piece of meat she impaled on a fork. When she finally gulped it down, she sighed heavily, and told her grandmother short version of what happened in canyon, saving the details, because otherwise it would take forever.

"So, you're saying that right before your eyes there were those robots traditionally trashing one another, and then the foppish one got hit and you called his boss?" Marabeth summed up, once Natalie was finished.

"More or less… But, hey, you actually believe me or you're just joking?" Natalie raised her eyebrow, looking at Marabeth quite skeptically. As much as her grandmother could read everything from her, it never worked the other way around, much to girl's annoyment.

"It sounds absolutely impossible, sure, but I have no reason to not believe you. You surely didn't do drugs, you surely are not seing things from fatigue and overwork, and you're quite far from mentally unstable" Marabeth only shrugged, taking the now empty plate from under hands of currently aghast girl. "And tell you what; I'm kinda jealous of your adventures and new acquaintance. Oh, if things like that happened when I was young…

"You ain't old" Natalie interrupted, grimacing.

"I'm not young either" woman laughed.

"If I didn't know how old you really are, I'd say you're forty tops, and pros for cool white hair highlights" Natalie muttered, causing yet another wave of laughter. That, also, was a family thing; both, cat eyes, and the fact that women from this family seemed to physically age in at least two times slower rate than others.

"Kay, I'm going back to vegetating in m sanctuary. If you want something, call" Natalie stretched on the chair and stood up after a while, grabbing her bag and went back into the salon. Already there, she turned towards stairs, but instead of going up, she had opened door next to it, finding yet another set of stairs, going down for a change. Concrete walls painted white were cold, and plywood didn't make it any warmer down there. Very pleasant change after whole day spent in unbearable heat. Natalie walked down, passing by middle-sized garage, which was currently hosting only two cars of her grandmother. Marabeth wanted just two, even if she could have about ten with no problem; but it would appear that one black monster truck painted in blue flames, standing on huge wheels (because Marabeth was a fan of massacring innocent wrecks and landscapes) and simple Mercedes painted pale green (which was used in much more civilized way than truck, to ride to another town or for shopping) were enough.

Natalie, however, passed by the door quickly, walking through dimly-lit hallway, as if taken straight out of indie horror game. Finally she turned, quite abruptly, pushing open thick, oaken door and walked into the room differing drastically from the hallway. Walls covered with green paper, of course printed with cats and cat paws, panel floor (heated, of course), covered nearly whole by fluffy, plain, green and black carpets. Furniture was nearly all black, sometimes with silver outlines. Two big desks on which computers were stationed had on also tons and tons of various technological gadgets and parts, and a lot of papers. Rest of the wall on which the door were was occupied by sturdy bookshelf, nearly bending down under the weight of books about everything. In the corner, touching two walls, was stationed a gigantic bed able to house four people to sleep comfortably on, taking more than a quarter of room's whole space. It was covered with tons of fluffy pillows, one coverlet and two soft, plush blankets. Everything was, of course, green and black, patterned in cats. Closet, standing by second door, which lead to the bathroom, was not very big, but the dresser standing between it and the bed had some more books, notebooks and papers on, but those were solely meant for school.

The most outstanding thing, however, was ever-present mess; actually, mess being said gently, because the room looked as if there was a raging tornado in it mere minutes ago. Various pieces of clothing laid absolutely everywhere, much like all kind of electronics – cables or not, gadgets, not to mention papers and books. Thankfully, save for bag of chips, there was no food there.

Natalie was not only a hacker, but also a technician of a sort. She always liked fiddling with things, and if something broke, Marabeth always gave it to Natalie to 'play' with before calling a specialist. In most cases, calling a specialist was proving to be completely unnecessary; almost as if Natalie and electronics were in conspiracy or something. She was able to fix a lot of things (because of decade of fiddling with broken stuff), and sometimes even better, than a specialist.

Natalie sighed heavily, throwing her bag somewhere, but not without taking the laptop out first, and walked to one of the desks, the one with less mess on, placing the ever-active device on and opened it up. She had her mind made up absolutely to dig deep in the endless void that is Netz, in search of absolutely anything about giant robots; pictures, sightings, relations from meetings; absolutely anything. Eventually, if she will be very desperate, she'll just break into military database (not first, not the last time). They always have something.

After about two hours and magnificent findings count of absolute zero, Natalie decided that she is very desperate. But exactly that moment something under pile of papers started shaking and howling in typically phone-ish way. Natalie sighed, throwing papers to the ground, and picking up the howling phone. It was childishly simple way they came out with Marabeth long ago; if grandmother wanted something, she just called, and the phone in her room was stationary, so it was impossible to silence it.

~ _There's a car before the house, and it's asking for you_ ~ Marabeth's voice sounded the second Natalie picked the phone.

"The car asked?" Natalie questioned, sitting more comfortably on her chair.

~ _Well, nobody's coming out anyway._

"How does it look?"

~ _Hm, I'm not a specialist, but I think it's one of those sporty racing cars. Red, with flames on sides._

"Does it sound gay?"

~ _Totally._

"Then tell him I'll crawl upstairs in a minute" Natalie sighed heavily, closed her laptop and very reluctantly moved for her bag, throwing the books out of it and replacing them with laptop and few other things. She put her shoes on, who somehow got off her feet when she was searching, quite swiftly and slowly moved upstairs. Who liked walking stairs anyway?

"Is this what you told me about?" Marabeth asked once Natalie was upstairs. She stood by the window and scanned the car.

"Well, it appears to be him. Time to hit the road. Bye, gramps, dunno when I'll be back" Natalie muttered, waving, and then walked fast out of the house and into the street.

"Took you a while" car said, turning its engines on, but it was obvious from this distance that it was completely empty.

"Well, I can go back in, if you want…"

"No! Wait!"

"I'm waiting. Don't get outrageous, raspberry."

"I… Hey, don't call me raspberry!"

"Nah. Raspberry fits perfectly such pansy like you, **Raspberry**."

"I'm giant robot from space! Some respect please!"

"Respect, ugh. What else, maybe some chips to that?" Natalie huffed, rolling her eyes.

"Ugh, go away… I mean, no, no, don't go anywhere!" the car muttered, correcting himself nearly instantly after girl already turned around to go home.

"Ugh, decide, Raspberry. You're worse than a girl."

"You're girl yourself, shut up."


	4. Chapter 4

Don't wanna be persistent, but a review to tell me what do you think about the story would be very nice.

 **|CHAPTER FOUR|**

 **|With respect for respect|**

* * *

Natalie should do something. Anything. Perhaps.

There's only one important question left; what exactly? Well, except for thoughtlessly gazing at the car that is. She never really cared for this type of cars. Actually, she never cared for vehicles at all, her interests consumed by different things, but now… This wasn't such an ordinary car now, was it? Theoretically, it wasn't even car to begin with, especially keeping in mind that it could instantly transform into a oversized robot. But even as a car he was a pleasant view for eye and aesthetics. Sure, a bit too shiny; but he visibly took good care of himself. Of his appearance at least. He was a muscle car of streamline shape, of a Brand Natalie, obviously, couldn't name. It shouldn't be surprising, though, since she could say cars only to be passenger cars, transport cars and carrier cars. She could say a bus from a truck, but her knowledge ended where fancy car marks started. KnockOut was streamline, much alike all those fancy new racing cars, although with no exquisite additions. His paint was red, almost scarlet, a bit too shiny, with a flame motif on sides. Wheels and handle were yellow, and there was little-to-no to be seen through his darkened windows. Natalie, still, was willing to bet that his seats were upholstered with leather.

Cars like him always had seats upholstered with leather.

"You like me?" KnockOut asked. He was to be admired, sure, for a long time even. However he doubted that there would be much to admire if his lateness angers Megatron; that con was absolutely unpredictable, and terrifying.

"Not you. Your appearance, though, I do" Natalie corrected.

"Oh. Okay. Can we go now?"

"Go wherever you please, whoever you are."

"Hey…!"

Natalie glared at the car, putting her hands into pockets of her pants before looking up into the sky. Half-full moon shone very dimly, sun hasn't properly set yet, and there were tens of lights in the garden, ineptly pretending to be fireflies. All in all, the world was currently not really pretty mixture of yellow, red, blue and green. She sighed, looking at the car again. It looked completely turned off, but she knew exactly that it wasn't. She nodded, muttering something about too-great curiosity and walked over to it.

"Can't promise I won't cause chaos there, you know."

"And what could you possibly…"

"Ekhm, Earth to raspberry. I was able to hijack your top-secret communication line knowing practically nothing of you or your security systems, and it took me shorter than my first time break into top-secret government database. Although the latter can be explained with utter lack of experience, I was nine and bored when I did that. So, what can I do, you ask? I could, for example, took control over your base, wherever you live in, and if I was lucky, you wouldn't even notice. You get it now?"

"Uh, I'm no intel-master, but to sum it up: you can be dangerous, yes?"

"Not as dangerous as fucking curious."

"So, you coming?"

"Do I even have a choice to begin with?

"Um… Not exactly, actually."

"Exactly. You can always pick me up and Carry away, you know."

"Oh. I… Didn't think of that."

Right that moment Natalie facepalmed hard, moaning and shaking her head. She looked at the car, unsure whether she believes or not. She was the one supposed to be afraid, that he'll crush her or whatever, really; when she practically controlled the situation! Had she said she's not going anywhere, the end, would he just let go? Very possible, however Natalie only played with him. With every passing moment she was growing even more and more curious about them, wanting to meet them, see it all and ask shit ton of questions. She knew just fine that she was to enter territory of robots where fifteen feet was considered short height. Natalie herself, being five feet and nine inches, would surely feel there like an imp. Yes, she did tower over nearly every girl in school and few guys, sure, but she felt so tiny compared to those robots. And very, very soft and squishy, keeping in mind the material they were made of; they could just squish her, had they wanted, perhaps without even noticing it. She sighed, resigned, shaking her head and got into the car without a word, sitting on driver's seat and throwing her bag onto passenger's one.

Leather. Black leather. Black leather everywhere. Seat trimming, wheel trimming, ceiling, door trimming. Anything that only could was glistening with cold blackness. But it was still leather, as Natalie correctly guessed, true to the 'such cars always have leathery seats' rule. It was never wrong. Never.

KnockOut moved nearly instantly after, as if afraid that she'll loose the will for very possible suicide… Meeting Megatron, that is, and rest of Decepticon band who are in-progress of wolrd domination plan. And she seemed to be perfectly aware of the fact; that she was waltzing straight into the jaws of very, very hungry lion. Was human curiosity so very dangerous that it pushed those soft, so easily-broken creatures into places where they could lose their lives very fast and very easily? KnockOut didn't know. And he didn't think he even wanted to know. Human minds, once you wanted to go deeper and understand them, were dangerous. Very dangerous. Especially those alike of hers. Not that she was much different than others of her kind, no, at least not at first glance. Only those **eyes**. Those eyes, so wild, and yet full of intelligence, resembling those of mythical beasts from human stories he sometimes read to spend his time. Insanely clever and even more dangerous. And he didn't know what to think anymore.

"KnockOut to base, mission accomplished, requesting groundbridge" the robot, or actually as of now, a car, said through the radio, loud and clear for Natalie to hear. Something cracked, something squeaked, and then he received weak, almost shy confirmation. Somebody, whoever they might be one the other side, was not a talkative person, because it was rather unlikely for giant space robots to be sic; at least in human way that was a sore throat. Natalie hissed, loudly and angrily, when the wheel turned abruptly the second she touched it.

"I'm drawing here" red mech huffed, in answer for what the cat-eyed girl bent her lips in very, very ugly grimace and pushed the brake to the very floor, causing an abrupt stop of the car. The car, to be precise, nearly stood on the front, and only belts around her chest stopped her from landing on the front window. That was an dangerous maneuver. Very dangerous.

"I'm the one behind the wheel here. Could you please not react like this at inspecting?" Natalie answered in much too calm, nearly monotone tone.

"ARE YOU FUCKING NUTS?!" KnockOut Roared, shaking so much that Natalie was pretty sure he's going to transform any second. He didn't, though. "Do you want to kill yourself? Or worse, ruin my paint?!"

Of course, it was all about paint.

"We wouldn't day anyway" she shrugged, foot still on the brake.

"You little…! Let go, we gotta move!"

"No."

"I'm in a hurry!"

"I don't care."

"You… Ugh, fine, I'm sorry I turned. I won't do that anymore. It this okay?"

It was okay.

Natalie let go just as abruptly as she pushed it. In the same time, she actually refused to believe how come was that KnockOut didn't get the idea to actually transform, take her in hand and carry away. However, she left that thought for herself, unwilling to provoke the red mech. He could still do it, and what then? This, she preferred not to know. However, letting the brake effected with very abrupt start of the car, and very loud curse. Perhaps a curse. The word he said was in some weird dialect that Natalie couldn't place along with any other language she knew or even heard of. Perhaps it was his native? That was very possible. He, obviously, wanted to say something more, but there was suddenly a whirl of blue, white and green before them, an oval aurora, which Natalie saw few times already. She still wasn't sure she believed that those robots actually possessed an active teleport, which was actually in territory of magical abilities already. Technology, though, wasn't all that far from magic, if given a second thought.

KnockOut accelerated upon seeing the portal, and jumped into it with quite big impact. This, however, proved to not to be very good idea, because right after that he had to brake hard, to avoid beautiful crash straight into the wall. Assuming that thing was a wall to begin with, that is. It was a surface that went as far from smooth, as possible – indents, bringing ribcage on mind, and hallways, if they looked like this as well, surely reminded of heavily-folded intestine.

Not wasting a second, Natalie practically jumped through passenger's door, because ones from driver's side got blocked, grabbing her bag and started to look around the room. And nearly started squealing in delight. She kept quiet, however, because foreign place is a foreign place, and it's not quite right to act as if you were on your ground. That, of course, doesn't apply to watching and touching anything and everything within one's reach. Giant holographic panels seated above sturdy consoles, and consoles full of well-known, ever-present mess; parts, glass, plastic. Somebody's head. However not that, but the technology was what was in the centre of attention, because visibly – very visibly, actually – it was so much more advanced than Earth's. By about… Two thousands of years? Something like that. Flooring was pretty smooth, and solid, metal. Actually, everything here was made of metal. Walls of metal, floor of metal, ceiling of metal, inhabitants of metal. Glazing made of glass. Or something similar to glass at the very least. Huge throne on the background of it was surely made of metal.

Wait. Throne? They had a king or something? Well, that was possible, very possible, actually. They were, after all, completely foreign civilization.

Natalie, as much as she tried to remain silent and composed, couldn't help a very surprised yelp when huge, slender hand equipped with four exceptionally long and slender fingers caught her in waist and picked up, high. She heard absolutely no steps. Or maybe it was inspecting everything that dulled her environment awareness so much? Or that – whatever picked her up – was a master of sneaking. Speaking of 'that', because she couldn't come with a better word. Perhaps. She didn't see the face – only smooth, black, glistening mask brining a computer monitor to mind. The robot himself – because it was surely both a robot and a he – had his armor painted purple and navy blue so dark it was almost falling into black. However, aside of that and of the fact that he had exceptionally slim hands, ending with long claws, she couldn't say much more about him. It was because of the fact that black screen that hid his face (assuming he even had it), took most of her field of view with just how close to it he was holding her. Natalie decided she was not going to risk a glance away. Somewhere out there KnockOut's cursing finally ended, and there was that mechanical sound to be heard, as if scratching metal with metal, the same she heard when two big ones transformed in canyon; thus Natalie concluded that right now KnockOut was in his bipedal form once again. Her conclusion proved to be correct once she heard steps, and short while later was moved slightly away from newcomer's face, only to see that red robot put a hand on his arm and smiled like an absolute idiot. He was, she noticed, also about two feet shorter than purple one.

"So, Soundwave, I see you're interested in our guest?" KnockOut laughed.

 _Oh, so his name is Soundwave, huh?_ , Natalie thought, smiling gently.

~ Interested ~ purple robot plated back KnockOut's own words in confirmation. Seemingly he was hiding not only his face, but also his voice; assuming, of course, that he had any of them.

"Hi, I'm Natalie" she answered, of course without being asked, waving cheerfully at the robot. She didn't even know when she stopped being bothered by hanging in mech's grip, and fear was, once again, effectively silenced by curiosity. Soundwave, as could've been expected, didn't answer; he did nod, tough. KnockOut started to happily chatter about something, but Natalie just ignored him, and thus caught no words of his. However, when heavy and perhaps angry steps sounded in the corridor, they both stopped instantly. As much as those two were more than less 'friendly' towards her, the one walking towards the… Headquarters? Yes. Robot walking towards the headquarters was surely not happy at all to know she's there. And seeing her could, and most likely would, be even worse. Not to mention that those steps were very heavy, which kept dropping very unpleasant hints about his size, built and equipment. He surely towered above the rest. And surely could've squished her in two fingers.

The worst part of it all was that when the door finally opened, they showed exactly what the cat-eyed girl feared they would. This one was very Big and very Bad.

First feature to catch her eye was, obviously, his size. He was surely quite a bit bigger than Soundwave, which was to be seen even from the distance that divided the door and the place Soundwave stood at. Also, he looked as if he was nearly whole made out of matt, silverfish-gray armor. Quite literally. The armor itself wore many, many battle-scars, scratched deeper and shallower. Natalie decided she didn't want to know what could've done that to this thirty-feet-tall terminator-knight.

His figure was that of a very-well built man; wide shoulders, narrow hips, sturdy, strong arms and legs. On his right hand he has something alike a mini-canon, or a bazooka. Natalie thought it would be unwise to provoke him to use it. As if his sole form was not enough, but no! He had to fucking have some big-ass canon-thing on his arm, had he? Surely it shoot lasers, to make things even more colorful. He also had shoulder-pads curling up, resembling horns; two plates, one atop of another, with sharp ends. Surely he looked like some sort of a knight. However, not like a fairytale knight, on a white horse and in shining armor, no. Much more than that he resembled some kind of evil lord from twisted fairytale, who was more than ready to rip off someone's head; where, right this moment, the most possible victim was Natalie. Way too possible for her personal tastes.

His face wasn't particularly scary, but it was sturdy and defined. Face of a warrior. And even with those glowing red eyes and fear it awoke, it also inspired admiration and respect. It was slightly wrinkled, scarred. His teeth were triangle-shaped, like those of a shark, and now he was showing them off in a grimace that was supposed to be scary and to scare Natalie herself. There was that thing on his head that resembled helmet; or a bucket. Or both at once. The body that armor didn't cover were black and purple. Those were joints; knees, elbows, sides of his abdomen and that very unpleasant-looking canon of his. His hands were big, not slim at all, ending with pretty long fingers… No, hold it. Claws. Those surely were claws. But to looka at it now, they all had claws. But this one not only had claws, but was also very, very mad. Keeping in mind that he was a bloody terminator with canon on his hand, it wasn't pretty picture. What on Earth was supposed to be his alternate form anyway? A tank? Well, that would be fitting, but who knew? Ones like that liked to surprise, and he could still turn out to be something flying. Heli-tank? As ridiculous wouldn't that sound, it didn't make it any less possible.

"What is this?" Big Bad asked, pointing his clawed finger at Natalie. His voice was deep, rumbling, very masculine and slightly raspy.

~ _Natalie_ ~ Soundwave answered in her own voice. Bid Bad just raised his eyebrow.

"This is the one I told you about, sir. The one that hacked our communication" Knockout stepped in to help his silent friend. Masked robot either didn't want, or couldn't speak.

"Oh. Just a small, weak, worthless fleshling" he rasped.

"Said the big talking pile of scrap!" Natalie hissed before she could think, which made the Big Bad growl loudly, closing the distance between them exceptionally fast. However, instead of taking girl herself, he gripped the wrist of Soundwave's slim hand and pulled it before his face.

"Do you realize who am I?" he asked, enraged.

"Nope" Natalie shrugged, not really caring for his anger.

"I am Lord Megatron! Leader of Decepticons!"

"And I'm a countess by birthright and I'm not bragging about it! Problem?"

"Respect me if you want to live."

"Respect me if you want to be respected. I'm oh-so-very sorry, your Lordiness, that I know my worth and I will not allow myself to be ill-treated even by walking, gigantic stack of metal that can easily break me in two fingers!" Natalie hissed out loudly, hitting her fist in robot's cheek. Of course, he didn't feel it even slightest.

"You little…!"

"You big! How come they hadn't overthrown you yet with this being how you act around everyone, all high and mighty and unpleasant is beyond me. What kind of wonder is this, I ask, and I don't believe in wonders!

"Because I'm stronger and smarted that them?"

"Be even a saint; they gang on you and you're as good as dead!" she hissed angrily, caring less about reactions of present bystanders, or even the little gathering crown of onlookers in form of few nearly identical drones, and blue KnockOut's partner behind them. Had she looked on the red robot, she would've started to laugh hard, because right now his face looked like this of a lemur suffering a particularly bad constipation. She did not, however, look around, only straight into red eyes of Megatron, still in Soundwave's grasp, who was perhaps too afraid to take his hand back. And, perhaps, was interested, too. In his whole life he had never seen anyone who, not only showed no signs of fear towards Megatron whatsoever, but also talked back to him without hesitation. Suddenly, there was something that nobody, absolutely nobody expected to happen; at least not those, who knew Megatron. Because he just laughed; and very honestly to that.

"I like you" he admitted finally.

"Me or his hand?" Natalie asked, her smile wide, amusing Megatron even further. Now all those who saw the 'spectacle' were more than shocked. Amusing their lord, especially with this kind of act, was impossible.

However, what they didn't know, the silver robot had taken interest in this little creature made of flesh and blood. Usually, he detested her kind, but she has something different in her, something that made her stand out; he couldn't, however, tell just what it exactly was. Others screamed in fear and ran from him, while she argued with him. In eyes of others he saw fear and dread, while hers held only sick levels of curiosity and intelligence. And some sort of spirit that he never witnessed before, be in ones of his own, or in humans. Maybe it was perhaps he never was interested in humans? Never mind, because he did not intend to change that fact. He was never, and did not intend to, take interest in humans.

With just one, cat-eyed exception.

"As never, I found interest in a fleshling. This is weird, I must say."

"You know, as always I found interest in something new, this time a talking pile of metal."

"I said something about that: he growled in warning.

"Do did I. And as this purple charming fellow here enlightened you, my name is Natalie. I'll even spell it for you; N-a-t-a-l-i-e. Repeat it.

"Natalie" he repeated, wincing. "what are you lot looking at? Don\t you have your own assignments to do?" he roared at group of quite a few of very alike drones standing by the door, who instantly darted in different directions upon hearing him. The only one who was left was the big blue robot, Breakdown, who had come to pick up KnockOut earlier today when the latter was sitting hurt in the cave. It was possible that now he was waiting for his friend as well.

"I came for the doc, his patchwork was done in a hurry and is shit" he explained. So he did come for him after all.

"I patched myself just fine, thank you!" KnockOut protested.

"Yes, yes, you're barely standing" Breakdown muttered, picking him up with an ease, not seeming to mind the very loud and very clear protests of red con. Natalie couldn't stop a giggle, because the sight was pretty comical, with KnockOut writhing while hung on Breakdown's shoulder, and Breakdown trying his best to not let go.

"Nice pack you've gathered there" she smiled.

"Nice, nice, only annoying as hell most of the times. Sometimes it feels like Soundwave is the only one who can do something besides squeaking and whining" Megatron sighed heavily.

"Assuming he can squeak and whine at all" girl huffed. Lord glared at her and smiled faintly, shaking his head.

"He can, trust me. Only, he just won't."

"Why?"

"Beats me. Although I'd like to know myself."

"Hey, why you're not speaking?" Natalie asked, looking at the purple robot. He just shook his head and shrugged, having no intention to answer in any way.

"You think I haven't asked?" Megatron snorted, already away before she knew it, seating himself comfortably on his throne. Now the impression of a knight had faded, replaced by a majesty vibe of a king.

"Soundwave, could you put me down somewhere? Just not on the ground, I'm going to feel like a bloody ant if you do" Natalie asked, swinging her legs and reminding the faceless con that she was still in his grasp. He tilted his head to the side, and turned towards the throne, then moved towards it. His walking was exceptionally soft and quiet, like a spy or an assassin. Or, better yet, a ninja; moving so quietly despise the fact that his size and building material should make it impossible. Bloody magician. But at least now she could have a bit better look at him. She must've said, that even amongst what she's seen of his kin, he was a special one.

His hands were completely flat, bringing wings of a plane to mind, and nearly reached the ground. His body was slender, but his shoulders still quite wide and sturdy legs. And those legs were quite interesting, because they went pretty far from normal. First what came to Natalie's mind were hind legs of a cat (it was always cats when it came to Natalie), because that was how the joints made them look. Maybe that was what allowed him to move so silently? And those navy blue parts turned out to be more grayish than at first glance, but still very dark. Only now she also noticed that he has four fingers, while every other robot she saw had five. Quite weird, indeed, but not so much, keeping in mind the whole build of his body.

He placed Natalie, perhaps on purpose, just right next to Megatron's hand, atop of some semi-table of height of a telephone booth and surface of a small room, and then walked away to his panels, returning to his duties. Natalie kept looking at him for a while, before turning her gaze to Megatron.

"Why you wanted me here anyway? Because surely not for a chit-chat."

"Yes, indeed. After you demonstrated your abilities, I think that you could help me in a certain way… And this kind of help would be most appreciated."

"What am I going to get in return?"

"Firstly, listen what it's about."


End file.
